Comments

The robber entered the Macs Milk store at 780 Baseline Rd. just after 1 a.m. this morning and demanded money and cigarettes from the lone clerk. The suspect threatened the clerk with the brick before making off with a small amount of cash and an undisclosed amount of cigarettes. He was last seen running behind the store.

The suspect is described as a white male, wearing a dark blue or black winter coat, grey sweater with a hood and blue baggy jeans.

Admirers want to honour anti-smoking crusader Heather Crowe with tobacco-free park

If Dr. David Salisbury has his way, anti-tobacco crusader Heather Crowe will be honoured with Ottawa's first non-smoking park named after her.

Salisbury, the city's chief medical officer of health, says the details are still in their infancy, but he's pleased with the concept.

Crowe became a symbol of the dangers of second-hand smoke when she was diagnosed with lung cancer from her 40 years of working in a smoky Ottawa diner.

She eventually succumbed to the disease last year, but not before taking her strong message about the dangers of second-hand smoke across the country.

Crowe began a campaign to bring in tobacco control laws that would protect other workers. And she was hugely successful in delivering that message.

The attention took an ordinary woman -- who'd never smoked in her life -- and thrust her into the national spotlight.

She became the first person to win a workers' compensation claim for injuries from second-hand smoke. She was invisible no more.

When Crowe set out to spend what time she had left crossing the country, speaking to all who would listen about why workers had to be protected from second-hand smoke, very few were unaffected by her powerful personal story.

The first City of Ottawa smoke-free park named in her honour would be a wonderful and fitting tribute.

Sue Jones, the city's director of bylaw services, said implementing the city's smoking bylaw in public places became much easier after Crowe went public with her disease -- and began her fight with workman's compensation.

"It's stopped being an enforcement issue; the bars saw what could happen and began buying into it," Jones said.

She said city councillors have two options in trying to create a smoke-free park.

They could simply declare the park smoke-free and hope park-goers honour the distinction, or they could actually amend the city's park and public facilities bylaw and designate the Heather Crowe Park smoke-free.

You already can't smoke within nine metres of an entrance of a city building, and you also can't smoke within Lansdowne Park.

To date, city councillors have been reluctant to contemplate taking their smoking bylaw too far into the great outdoors.

Doesn't it seem just a little ironic that banning smoking in bars -- where patrons can choose to go -- was taken care of before city-owned parks?

These are places where parents and young children go to enjoy the outdoors, go to play soccer in organized leagues, go to play baseball.

Minister of Health Promotion Jim Watson said yesterday he thinks a smoke-free park named in Crowe's honour is a great idea.

"It would be an amazing tribute and a very positive move to have a park named after her designated as smoke-free. It's only fitting and I wish them the best," Watson said.

Kitchissippi Coun. Christine Leadman actively supports the idea and has been working with others to find an appropriate park, one within Leadman's ward.

"I think that Heather was part of the community, and she touched a lot of people's lives. She really affected people. She wanted to make a change, a really positive change and that's something you want people to remember," Leadman said, adding a committee looking at finding an appropriate park feels strongly the location be within Kitchissippi ward.

"Heather lived and worked in the ward, all her affiliation was in the ward," she said.

The federal correctional service will decide next month if it will implement a smoking ban at its 58 prisons, the Whig-Standard has learned.

Inmates, unions and Correctional Service of Canada employees have until today to hand in the results of a questionnaire that will help senior administrators decide if they’re going to turn the indoor smoking ban into a total ban.

“I think CSC realizes they’re on borrowed time,” said Howard Page, a Millhaven Institution guard who has led the charge for smoke-free prisons.

The correctional service’s national executive is expected to meet sometime in the second week of April to make a decision.

Correctional service spokeswoman Holly Knowles said yesterday the review was planned when an indoor tobacco ban was implemented in January 2006.

“We were going to evaluate the effectiveness of the entire smoking ban after one year,” Knowles said.

She said some “challenges” were identified under the existing ban and they are the reason a new solution is being considered. She said she couldn’t elaborate.

An indoor smoking ban was put in place Jan. 31, 2006, against the wishes of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.

The union, which represents 6,000 prison guards, wanted a total ban and has complained that inmates are still sneaking cigarettes indoors and that guards are still having to inhale second-hand smoke.

“Despite the efforts of correctional officers since the new policy was implemented in January, it’s virtually impossible for us to prevent it from happening,” said Jason Godin, Ontario regional president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.

Correctional service commissioner Keith Coulter issued a notice to unions, staff, inmate committees and others on Feb. 9, informing them that an evaluation of the indoor ban had been completed and that the consultation would soon begin.

“The results indicate there have been some challenges and difficulties with the implementation and enforcement of this policy in many institutions,” Coulter wrote in the notice.

Page is aware that the correctional service pledged to review the indoor ban after a year, but he said he thinks the consultation and relatively quick decision promised may also have something to do with pressure from correctional staff and the guard’s union.

In August, Page lost an appeal before a tribunal to refuse to work in Millhaven, where prison staff testified inmates sneak smokes and pollute the air despite the indoor ban.

However, Page and the guards’ union are set to go before a federal court judge sometime in the spring to appeal the decision of the tribunal. The judge will either send Howard back to the tribunal for another hearing or uphold its decision.

At Page’s tribunal hearing last year, the adjudicator criticized the union’s case because it didn’t provide any scientific evidence and expert witnesses to back up its arguments.

Page said the union didn’t think such evidence was necessary because Health Canada has made its position clear on smoking in the workplace.

“I think the writing is on the wall and I think that’s why CSC is moving,” said Page. “The federal court will either rule in our favour or the next appeal hearing will rule in our favour.”

The hard data will include institutional tobacco sales, which show that inmates continued to smoke almost as much after the indoor ban as they did before.

According to numbers provided by Page, inmates bought $541,000 worth of tobacco in the six months before the ban and $527,000 worth in the six months after the ban.

Norview residents told to butt out by the province are fighting back with a petition calling for their smoking rooms to be re-opened.

“When you live in a house, you can smoke. Now you’ve moved into Norview, it’s your home,” said Jack Murray, 72, a resident of the county nursing home who is leading the campaign to petition Queen’s Park.

Norview on Queensway West opened less than two years ago and was built with two ventilated smoking rooms for residents.

Since then, however, Ontario smoking laws have been tightened. The rooms don’t meet new standards that call for a vestibule to help keep second-hand smoke from leaking into hallways.

It means the 15 smokers among the home’s 178 residents have to go outside to light up.

Murray’s petition calls for the Ontario government to “grandfather” smoking rooms in long-term care facilities.

“People have to go outside. It’s so dam cold out there,” said Murray, a retired factory worker who grew up on a tobacco farm near Lynedoch. “I pay $2,144 a month to be here.”

Patti Moore, general manager of Norfolk and Haldimand’s health and social services department, said the county has already turned down a proposal to add vestibules to the rooms at a cost of $60,000.

Instead, an outdoor smoking area with a roof and a couple of walls is being planned, Moore said.

She said the petition is unlikely to succeed because the province’s long-term care homes lobbied unsuccessfully for the grandfathering of the rooms well before the legislation was passed.

“Few if any homes across the province have any legal smoking rooms,” Moore noted. “Quite a number of homes are designated smoke free.” (Julie Rosenberg, spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion said 16 of the province’s 621 long-term care facilities have smoking rooms).

Sitting in his wheelchair outside the front door with a cigarette in his hand, William Taylor, 72, said “no, not really” when asked if he minds the change.

“It’s not so much me as older folks in their 80s and up. They can’t navigate (their wheelchairs outside),” said Taylor.

“People don’t know what tobacco did for Norfolk County,” he said, claiming it helped pave roads and provide summer jobs for university students.

Even if it’s unsuccessful, the petition is worthwhile, Murray added. “Everybody says ‘You’re just wasting your time. What’s the use?’ But at least we’ll let them know we have concerns

KINGSTON, Ont. -- The federal correctional service will decide next month if it will implement a smoking ban at its 58 prisons, an eastern newspaper reports.

Inmates, unions and Correctional Service of Canada employees have until the end of Friday to hand in the results of a questionnaire that will help administrators decide if they're going to turn the indoor smoking ban into a total ban. "I think CSC realizes they're on borrowed time," said Howard Page, a Millhaven Institution guard who has led the charge for smoke-free prisons.

Corrections spokeswoman Holly Knowles said yesterday the review was planned when an indoor tobacco ban was implemented in January 2006. "We were going to evaluate the effectiveness of the entire smoking ban after one year," Knowles said.

An indoor smoking ban was put in place Jan. 31, 2006, against the wishes of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. The union wanted a total ban and has complained inmates are still sneaking cigarettes indoors and guards are still inhaling second-hand smoke.

I understand that smoking cigarettes is harmful to my health. Heather Crowe inhaled second-hand smoke for decades and fell victim to the cancer that took up residence in her body. That cancer never paid any rent or fees to its landlady. It just persisted at slowly sucking every last ounce of life out of Heather's beautiful bacon and eggs serving soul.

An outdoor park named in her honour is, in my opinion, a great way to recognize her crusade against the ill effects of second-hand smoke. But a smoke-free outdoor park?

I will not abstain from smoking in any outdoor park. Any area outside those nine metres surrounding city buildings is mine as much as it is yours. If I feel like having a cigarette in the open air, I will smoke it.

He also knows that nobody ever got cancer solely from second-hand smoke and that includes Heather Crowe.

Starting at midnight, tobacco taxes went up by $2 a carton, or one cent per cigarette. That’ll bring in $4.3 million more for government.

Liquor prices will go up by 1.5 per cent sometime this year. User fees for nearly all government services will go up by 6.8 per cent.

The news isn’t all bad. The province will increase the basic personal tax exemption by $250, saving an individual $22 in 2007. By 2010, increases in the personal exemption would save an individual $220 a year in taxes. The province is also increasing spousal tax credits, along with dependent, disability, pension and caregiver credits.

Students will get a break, too. Graduates who stay and work in the province will get a $2,000 tax credit, up from $1,000. Students who stay and study in the province will get another $500 tuition rebate, and the province is kicking in $12.5 million to freeze university tuition at September 2006 levels.

The Canadian Cancer Society Nova Scotia division is “very supportive” of the cigarette price increase.

“We know that any price increase is associated with a decrease in consumption of tobacco, so tobacco pricing is truly an effective tobacco-control mechanism,” director of programs Meg McCallum said.

“When you’re 14, it might affect you, but when you’re 42 like me, the decision was made long ago.”

Outside a Halifax liquor store, consumers took the news of a 1.5 per cent price increase in stride.

“I don’t really like price increases, but overall, that’s not too bad,” Saint Mary’s University student Chad Martin said.

“It’s not a huge boost, but it winds up adding up over time, but (1.5 per cent) is not going to kill me yet,” his buddy Nick Brown added.

Carrie Mollon said the increase is not a big deal: “I’d rather have the (1.5) per cent in my, but oh well, we don’t drink a whole lot.”

NEW YORK - Coffee lovers who are in good health may have little reason to cut back, at least as far as their blood pressure is concerned, a new study suggests.

Because the caffeine in coffee and other foods can cause a shortterm spike in blood pressure, there's been concern that coffee drinking may over time raise the risk of high blood pressure. Studies, however, have come to inconsistent conclusions.

In the new study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers found that healthy women who drank upwards of six cups of coffee per day were no more likely than abstainers to develop high blood pressure over the next decade.

On the other hand, women who drank coffee occasionally or in moderation -- reporting anywhere from zero to three cups a day -- had a higher risk of developing high blood pressure than the heavy coffee drinkers or the abstainers.

For men, the risk of high blood pressure did not significantly increase or decrease, regardless of how much coffee they drank each day. However, men who abstained did have a lower risk than any coffee drinkers.

Still, the effect was "relatively small," Dr. Cuno S. P. M. Uiterwaal, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health.

Handing out blanket advice on coffee or any food is difficult, noted Dr. Uiterwaal, an associate professor at the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands.

But given the overall research on the effects of coffee on healthy people--including studies that suggest health benefits, like a lower diabetes risk-- there seems to be no reason to discourage them from enjoying their java, according to the researcher.

"The general advice to healthy people, if any, would then be that there is no argument for healthcare workers to advise against coffee drinking," he said.

Even if coffee drinking contributes to blood pressure elevations in some people, Dr. Uiterwaal noted, studies have failed to show that it actually raises the risk of heart disease in healthy people.

A potentially precedent-setting case that could make smoking in rental housing grounds for eviction began in Kingston yesterday.

Montreal Street resident Sharna Sugarman appeared before the Landlord and Tenant Board – formerly the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal – to complain that smoke from the apartment directly underneath hers seeps into her unit and is making her and her six-year-old daughter sick.

She is seeking to have her rent refunded since the downstairs tenant moved in last November and is asking the board to order her landlord to alleviate the problem.

The most likely way the landlord would do that, if the board were to make that order, would be to tell the tenant to stop smoking and serve them a notice of eviction if they didn’t.

Sugarman herself was served a notice of eviction by her landlords shortly after filing the case with the board.

The notice, in which landlords Jeff and Mike Cole say they need her apartment for a family member, is being appealed at the same hearing.

The issues raised by the case loom large, as hearing arbiter Brian McKee told the two lawyers involved in it yesterday at the Montreal Street Legion, where the hearings are held.

“If someone is in their own home, and they are not doing anything illegal, what right do I have to tell them not to do it?” McKee asked rhetorically, noting that likely is only the first such case the board will be asked to adjudicate.

“I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and I believe this will be the issue of the decade.”

He noted that while an argument can be made about the degree of health damage second-hand smoke causes, there is no question that it is not a desirable thing to be exposed to.

“On the balance of probability, second-hand smoke is not good for anyone, I think we can all agree on that.”

The quasi-judicial rental body has the authority to rule on the issue, as Sugarman is arguing the presence of the smoke amounts to loss of reasonable enjoyment of her home.

The argument is the same as if her neighbours were playing loud music or holding raucous late-night parties.

“She is allowed to smoke in her own unit,” Sugarman said under examination by lawyer John Done of the Kingston Community Legal Clinic.

“What I asked him to do is stop it from entering my unit. That is my airspace, it is my home.”

In his opening remarks, Done made it clear that he will argue it is a landlord’s duty to ensure tenants are not exposed to such substances as cigarette smoke when they are not smokers themselves.

“Drifting second-hand smoke is hazardous to people’s health generally and to children’s health specifically,” he said.

Since a new tenant moved below the two-bedroom unit Sugarman shares with her young daughter, she noticed smoke coming through the floor vents of the old brick building that had been converted into a fourplex.

The previous tenant had not smoked and Sugarman’s young daughter immediately started complaining about the smoke after the new tenant moved in six months ago.

Sugarman said the smoke makes her feel ill and her daughter has developed a chronic cough that was only relieved when the girl spent several days with Sugarman’s non-smoking mother.

“It affects my daughter and her sleep, and she wakes up when she smells it and I have to put her back to sleep again.”

Her daughter’s school attendance is suffering, she said, as she is up for hours in the night and has to sleep late some mornings to make up for the hours she is awake in the night.

Sugarman said she has known from an early age that she personally is allergic to smoke although neither she nor her daughter has other allergies, such as one to animals. They own two small dogs and until recently had a cat.

She even switched rooms with her daughter, giving the young girl the top-floor loft bedroom furthest from the vents where the smoke enters the unit, but it has done little good.

She said she complained repeatedly to the landlords, but testified all they did was try a scented furnace filter and give her felt-like baffles to put over the floor registers. She said they were ineffective.

Acting for the Coles, who are small landlords with no other properties, was lawyer Tina Tom, who mounted an aggressive cross-examination.

She went in detail through the calendar Sugarman kept to note the days she smelled smoke, her relations with other tenants and how much she had done to address the problem herself.

She asked if Sugarman had bought a Smoke Eater, an appliance advertised as able to clean cigarette smoke particles out of the air.

“I don’t think they work, I think they’re a rip-off,” Sugarman responded.

“You’re concerned about your health and your daughter’s health, but you don’t want to try anything that might work?” shot back Toms.

She also questioned how Sugarman could know if the smoke was coming from the unit below hers, although Sugarman said she knew the tenant was a smoker and the problem only began when she moved in. She said the problem was present when she could hear the downstairs tenant moving around.

“It would be rude for me to peek through the curtains to see if they’re smoking,” said Sugarman during one of several restrained but edgy exchanges.

Toms also noted that the $685 monthly rent for the apartment included heat, and wondered why Sugarman did not leave a window open all the time to air out the unit.

“Doesn’t it make sense to you that if you can’t deal with the smoke you allege is there, you wouldn’t deal with it at no cost to yourself by opening a window?” she asked.

The landlords themselves did not have a chance to testify at the hearing, and Toms said they would not do interviews about the case before they have a chance to present their side when the hearing resumes.

The hearing also raised issues of personal credibility, as Toms put forward a tenant on the other side of the duplex who said she had smoked in Sugarman’s apartment and Sugarman raised no objection when she visited her own apartment and was exposed to smoke.

Sugarman denied the allegations under oath with the same vehemence with which they were made.

There is a short but bitter history between the two that includes calls to police and the Children’s Aid Society, plus a court-ordered peace bond between the two and a court date looming.

Both lawyers suggested, under cross-examination of the other side’s witness, that each woman was looking to discredit anything the other one said under oath with an eye to introducing that evidence at an upcoming court date.

Because of the complexity of the issues and length of evidence that is expected to be presented which may include at least one expert witness – McKee adjourned the hearing in the late afternoon.

It will resume in Kingston next month and a full day has been set aside to finish the case, a rarity for the board, which settles many cases in an hour or less.

The hall had received the funding for a year in return for its community services board which posted council meeting dates and special events. The municipality started the program to inform residents while helping the bingo industry deal with losses since the countywide smoking ban started in 2003.

Brian Sweet, director of corporate services, said Monday there is no longer a need to continue. He said it is worthwhile for charity groups to hold bingos.

His report to Leamington council said the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has allowed the bingo hall and the Sunparlour Bingo Association to share in the cost of bingos and by May there could be a new bingo revenue model.

The tobacco control lobby is totally out of control and blatantly irresponsible for their consistent efforts to turn gullible non-smokers against smokers. Depriving smokers from their right to housing on the pretext that second hand smoke drifts through electrical outlets or cracks in the wall and affects the health of non-smoking tenants in other apartments, is not only unsubstantiated but unethical and immoral. It is high time that society allows unbiased science and especially common sense, rule. If second hand smoke was such a serious health hazard, the baby boomers with smoking rates as high as 50 - 60% that have inhaled both their own mainstream and second hand smoke for decades, would be dropping like flies and our society would not be so concerned about financially providing for them as they are expected to live to a ripe old age.

Iro Cyr - Vice-President C.A.G.E. (Citizens Against Government Encroachment) www.cagecanada.ca

I read the article about honouring Heather Crowe with her own park. What a fantastic Idea. I hope nobody at council or government drags their heels on this at all. The sooner this takes place the better. Fantastic idea.

To ban smoking in an outdoor park is absolutely ridiculous. Rather than continually beating down smokers, why not assist them in quitting?

Many, like me, would like to try some of the methods like accupuncture, etc. but do not have the money.

The government is spending multi-million dollars on web sites and expensive brochures on how to quit but there is no actual assistance.

If the City ofOttawa is considering having hard-drug usage havens, why not help smokers?

How predictable that Ellen Holmes of the Ottawa Council on Smoking and Health is calling on Minto and "all city developers" to make their multi-unit housing "smoke-free." Obviously tired of celebrating the already excessive bans on smoking in public places in Ottawa, the Council on Smoking and Health is looking for new ways to justify its existence by conjuring up new phantom fears associated with secondhand smoke.

In her letter, Ms. Holmes makes a bold claim that the evidence regarding the hazards of secondhand smoke is "irrefutable." I call on her to tell us what the evidence is, without cherry-picking a few studies that support her views. The decades of secondhand-smoke research have produced findings that are inconclusive, even for research into risks for lifelong spouses of heavy smokers.

Ms. Holmes claims that the council receives complaints from tenants who go to great extremes to shield themselves from secondhand smoke in their homes. She might want to share with us how many such complaints are received and what the real stories are: The paranoia and hysteria of a very few cannot justify going after law-abiding people indulging in a legal activity in their own homes.

It is time to draw the line: Either totally ban tobacco use, or drop the theatrics and half-truths being used in an effort to bully others into complying with utopian views of a "public health" dictatorship.

On opening the morning paper (March 22), I was greeted by a picture of a woman who's face was horribly disfigured due to cancer.

This anti-smoking campaign organization has stepped way over the line. Everybody knows that smoking can cause cancer. So can drinking alcohol, pesticides, drugs, pollution and much of the food we consume, but I do not need to see pictures of the worst case scenario.

Smoking is a choice. Smoking is still legal. Save the shock for the movies. This picture is not news but a cheap way to get attention.

Steven Browne West Lorne

Warning they are “dying a slow, cruel death,” angry tobacco farmers turned on local MP Diane Finley in a placard-carrying protest in front of her office Friday morning.

They blame her for not getting them a buyout and are calling for her resignation.

“We thought she was going to get the job done. Obviously she hasn’t,” said Walsh area grower Jerry DeCarolis, who crammed the parking lot in front of Finley’s office in a tense demonstration with other farmers.

“We waited for the federal budget (for an exit package). There was nothing, a complete zero.”

Demonstrators carried signs that warned the Harper government it faces “war” with farmers.

“They don’t give a shit about anybody in this riding,” said farmer Jon Lechowicz. “If they did, it would have been addressed in the budget.”

Growers blame their demise - the tobacco crop has shrunk by more than two-thirds in less than a decade - on anti-smoking policies and increased imports of leaf. They are calling for a buyout package similar to what tobacco farmers in the U.S. and Australia were given by their governments.

Friday’s protest comes only days after hundreds of growers held a rally in front of Finley’s office during which she was declared a “friend” for her attempts to lobby Ottawa on tobacco’s behalf.

But many farmers now say they are desperate as spring planting approaches for a season in which they will be allowed to grow about 10 per cent of their quota - not enough, they say, for any of them to survive.

They had hoped the government would announce an exit program in last week’s budget.

“I’m not going to grow this year, that’s for sure,” said Turkey Point area farmer George DeLeebeeck, whose family has planted a crop every year since 1948. “This is life and death we’re going through.”

Lechowicz warned that he plans to start growing outside the current regulated system, which requires farmers to own quota and sell through a marketing board.
“If there’s not an exit plan, the government better be prepared for the wild west,” he said. “I will survive by serving any market I see fit. Many farmers are going to do the same.”

Eden grower John Stewart said he has heard a lot of farmers say they too are willing to break out of the marketing board system.

“When a guy’s gotta put food on the table, he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do,” said Stewart.

If that happens, however, they will be breaking the law and could have their quota pulled, warned Rick Cerna, a director of the Ontario Flu-Cured Tobacco Growers’ Marketing Board who attended the protest.

“These are desperate, desperate people out there,” he said. “We’ve been led to believe all along that this program was achievable and she (Finley) would do everything for us. It’s taken a year (of lobbying) and we’re no farther ahead.”

Many farmers, Cerna added, have hit a wall in which banks are refusing to lend them any more money, making it impossible for them to plant another crop.
“We’re dying a slow, cruel death. We’re slowly starving to death.”

Police are investigating a knifepoint robbery that occurred Saturday at a west-side Mac's convenience store.

Two male suspects wearing black ski masks, gloves and armed with knives entered the business in the 3600 block of Matchette Road at 5:30 a.m. and threatened the attendant before fleeing with an undisclosed amount of cash and cigarettes. No one was hurt.

The suspects, who were dressed in dark clothing, are described as being 17 to 20 years old, each weighing about 150 pounds and standing about five feet, eight inches tall.

First came smoke-free restaurants and bars. Then came workplace bans. Now, support for kicking smokers out of apartment buildings is hitting home, quite literally.

An Ontario anti-smoking group says polling it commissioned has found majority support for banning smoking within individual residences in apartment buildings or any other multiunit household in the province.

The Ontario Tobacco-Free Network, which had the poll conducted and will release it today, says 57 per cent of those living in multiunit dwellings would support such a ban.

Smoking is currently prohibited in elevators, hallways and other common areas in Ontario, but not in apartment residences. The poll detected widespread annoyance over second-hand smoke seeping into the residences of non-smokers, with half of those surveyed saying they've had tobacco smoke odour enter their units from elsewhere in their buildings, and 70 per cent of those saying they're bothered by it.

The finding is believed to be the first public opinion survey in Canada showing attitudes are hardening against smokers in home settings. Until now, smokers have thought of their homes as sanctuaries where they could light up in peace, but the poll suggests smoking is starting to be viewed in the same light as other off-putting behaviour in communal settings, such as noise, poor hygiene and late-night parties.

The pollster who conducted the survey predicted the next big move against smoking will be in multiunit dwellings, with increasing pressure for buildings to be designated as smoke free.

"What the research clearly shows is that you've got six out of 10 people out there that, if you hang out a shingle that says smoke-free apartment or condominium complex, you're going to have people decide to move into that," said John Wright, a senior vice-president of Ipsos Reid, which conducted the survey.

The poll surveyed 1,800 people across the province who live in multiunit residences, and is considered to be accurate within 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. It was conducted in November and March of 2006, with the second round of questioning done to confirm the findings.

If the finding that nearly half of those living in multiunit dwellings have had tobacco smoke enter their units was applied across Ontario, it suggests about two million of the four million total residents are being exposed to unwanted second-hand smoke, a known carcinogen, from neighbours.

The poll also found that 64 per cent of those living in multiunit dwellings would choose, when looking for a place to live, a smoke-free building over one where smoking was permitted.

The Ontario Tobacco-Free Network is a coalition of three prominent public health organizations: the Canadian Cancer Society, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, and the Lung Association.

Network spokeswoman Irene Gallagher said the health organizations found they were starting to deal with a large number of unsolicited complaints from members of the public about second-hand smoke drifting among residences in multiunit dwellings. The health groups wanted to check how widespread these concerns were.

According to Ms. Gallagher, the large number of respondents preferring not to come into contact with smokers in home settings suggests an unfilled need in the housing market. "There is a big demand in the market for smoke-free buildings," she said.

Currently, there is nothing to stop landlords from offering smoke-free buildings or having non-smoking clauses in leases, and some building owners in both as have some new condominium developments.

The poll found that about one-third of respondents were bothered by smoke from their neighbours and 6 per cent found the problem so annoying they either moved or considered moving to get away from smokers.

A number of complaints have also been made to Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board, where some residents have sought to have landlords evict smokers using legal provisions normally applied against those who create nuisances.

The finding of widespread health concern over smoking in multiunit homes doesn't come as a surprise to Adrianne Schutt, a Peterborough resident who lives in a small apartment building and has recently been bothered by smoke from neighbours.

If there were a ban in Ontario on smoking in apartments, "I would be overjoyed, absolutely overjoyed. It's incredibly unpleasant" to be exposed to second-hand smoke, she said.

She lives in an apartment where the landlord failed to enforce an existing lease provision banning smoking, something that irked her after two heavy smokers moved next door and began smoking on a shared balcony, causing cigarette smoke to drift into her unit.

"You shouldn't be subjected to something hazardous in your own home," she said. "It's not 1930 any more. We know this [tobacco] is going to kill us."

An Ipsos-Reid survey by Canadian Cancer Society-affiliate The Ontario Tobacco-free Network claims 64 percent of tenants in this province favour the idea of banning smoking in apartment buildings.

At least 70 percent insist smoke from puffing neighbours in the complexes is a serious annoyance.

The group believes the numbers speak for themselves and urge tenants to do the same when it comes to trying to influence the policy in their own buildings.

"We want landlords and tenants to hear there's this information," advises Irene Gallagher. "This is a big issue. Second-hand smoke is a health issue. There are 4,000 chemicals in secondhand smoke, 50 of which are carcinogens. There are options."

Cigarette-free buildings already exist in Manitoba and in Michigan, and both are said to have achieved some surprising levels of success.

"In our experience with hundreds of landlords, getting cooperation from residents with voluntary smoke-free policies has been excellent," reports Jim Bergman of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project in Ann Arbor.

Renters are required to sign leases pledging they'll remain cigarette-free before they move in. Violating that agreement could get them turfed out of their own place. But that hasn't happened.

"There have been no problems and certainly no evictions," Bergman outlines. "When it's a matter of free choice, people play by the rules. If they sign an agreement saying they'll follow a smoke-free policy, they do."

A condo project in Vancouver has also attracted huge crowds who want to live in a place where smoking is only a word, not an action.

"Neighbours tend to know when others are being un-neighbourly and not following the agreed rules," relates Richard Morantz of Globe General Agencies, a landlord out west.

But others argue the policy is not only unforceable, but could be opened to legal challenges.

"We're against institutionalized policies that discriminate against smokers where you have a major landlord in town that controls the majority of access to rental units who would institute a smoke-free policy of that nature which would clearly discriminate against smokers," argues Nancy Daigneault of mychoice.ca, a tobacco industry sponsored organization.

"We did a similar survey on this back in the fall ... We asked non-smokers specifically if they agreed whether smokers should be discriminated against when seeking housing. Sixty-seven percent in Ontario said no."

The Network responds that it's not trying to stir up trouble between neighbours. It just wants to get a dialogue going - one that's smoke free.

46% have had tobacco smoke odour enter their unit in the past 12 months from somewhere else in their building

The tobacco smoke odour usually seeps in primarily via the hallways (47%), windows

(41%), shared ventilation (21%), air leaks (18%) and through bathroom or kitchen fans

14% either moved (4%), or considered moving (10%), as a result of the smoke

41% consider it a personal health hazard and 32% consider it an infringement on their life and privacy

27% made suggestions or grievances to their landlord or another outside agency about the smoke

60% who made complaints didn't get a response, while 30% were told that there was nothing that could be done

16% of those with units affected by second hand smoke say that they or someone in their household suffered from a smoking-related illness or worsened condition.

Many condo or apartment building owners think that converting to a smoke free policy will lessen the values of the property and discourage people from moving into it. But experience in Michigan and Manitoba shows the opposite may be true. Proponents claim the turnover is lessened and vacancy rates lowered by the idea. And they insist it costs less to keep a smoke free building maintained.

Cold turkey may not work. A phased in approach with a deadline is likely your best bet. Start by banning smoking in common room areas. Send letters to all tenants informing them of the change, along with an in-house survey asking them if they would like to see it building-wide.

If some want it and others don't, another possible step is to make certain floors "non-smoking" only. Take a page from Ontario's pit bull ban law. All smokers who currently reside there can be allowed to stay, but new ones won't be permitted.

If you believe the folks in Manitoba and Michigan, there's never been a single challenge launched on the issue. Smokers may complain about discrimination, but instituting a no smoking policy isn't against the law.

Send them a warning letter, followed by penalties and fines. If they've signed a no smoking agreement in their lease, eviction is a last resort.

The majority of smokers aren't bad people. They don't want you or your kids choking on their output. Most will take their smoking outside if the majority supports the idea.

What if I can't get the policy in place and second hand smoke is still bother me?

Check places in your apartment where the offending smoke comes in. Try to seal it off if possible. According to the OTN, "if the owner-manager is not at all supportive of these remedies, it's possible that a residential tenancy official/tribunal could rule that drifting second hand smoke constitutes an unreasonable disturbance and thus order some form of remedy.

"The remedy might include repairs to the building to minimize the drifting smoke, permission to break your lease, or some other solution."

For more information, including a fact sheet for tenants and landlords, click here.

I am a smoker and I fully support the idea that smoking should be banned in buildings and enclosed areas that are to be frequented by the public.

I was born and raised in Victoria BC Canada , where we have a similar legislation. But, to say that banning smoking in all covered areas is a good idea to protect the health of the population is ridiculous.

If the issue is purely about cigarette smoke, then the purists that introduced this legislation should stop using the health issue as a cover. The issue is not cigarette smoke, the issue is air quality.

Any area where the air quality is not compromised by my cigarette smoke should not be included in this ban.

Covered patios, for instance, are areas where smoking should be allowed because the air quality does not suffer as a result of cigarette smoke. An individual’s health is not compromised because they do not like the smell of my cigarette. If that were the case, it would be better for you to ban all combustion engines to protect the health of the population.

I find dirty, unventilated wash rooms repulsive, but my health is not compromised by the smell. People that do not bath or, conversely, wear too much perfume are repulsive, but I do not hear anyone proposing legislation on hygiene issues.

Moreover, if health is truly the issue, then this all or nothing ban will further compromise the health of smokers who are forced to smoke out in the rain, on the roads, or standing in the ocean.

Do we now ban people with colds from entering public areas? Shall we implement a zero tolerance policy on drinking and driving? How about running with scissors or carrying umbrellas (I almost had an eye poked out once)?

Do my arguments sound silly? So does the idea that all exposure to cigarette smoke compromises ones health. Might I remind the readers of this letter that at one time we burned wood in fire places to heat enclosed areas, but the human race did survive. If you are truly that susceptible to cancer and lung disease, then perhaps you may need to take some more drastic measures to protect your own health and quit blaming others.

Two anti-tobacco demonstrations organized by students of Norfolk have been cancelled. 44 replica tombstones were to be erected tomorrow outside Simcoe Composite School and Holy Trinity, to act as a memorial to the number of people that die in Ontario every day from tobacco use. The Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit's Youth Action Alliance received complaints from both the schools and outside sources - because they felt it was tasteless, and another blow to area tobacco growers. Youth Advisor for the local Health Unit, Josh Daley, tells CD 98.9 they did not mean to offend or upset the tobacco community. Daley says the difficult struggle local tobacco farmers are having in their bid to secure an exit package may be making people extra sensitive, but emphasizes the demonstrations were not being directed against farmers. He says the Youth Action Alliance will be looking for a different location to hold the demonstration at a later date. Tomorrow morning with Kate Buick reaction from Holy Trinity Principal John Burroughs.

Ontario anti-tobacco group says public opinion snuffing out smoking in multi-unit dwellings

If controversy over a proposed smoke-free park in the city wasn't enough, a new report from the Ontario Tobacco-Free Network has added more fuel to the fire.

While the report claims that 64% of all multi-unit dwellers would choose a smoke-free building over one that permitted smoking, the OTN is not advocating a ban on smoking in apartments.

"We simply want to let landlords know that there are no economic repercussions for going non-smoking," said Carmela Graziani, spokeswoman for OTN in Ottawa.

Francis Thompson, policy director for the Non-Smokers Rights Association in Ottawa, says there is a significant demand for non-smoking buildings in the city.

One of the most frequent complaints the association received over the past two years is from non-smokers complaining about smoke drifting into their living spaces.

"With more education about the dangers of second-hand smoke, and with smoking being banned at most work places, restaurants and bars, people are realizing that they just don't have to live with it anymore," said Thompson.

Bob Jarrett, general manager of finance for the CLV group with several apartment buildings in Ottawa, said that the Residential Tenancies Act would make a smoking ban difficult to enforce.

"At the moment there is nothing the landlord can do to restrict the rights of tenants like that," said Jarrett "If there is a demand for that type of thing in the city, people should get together and ask politicians to changes the rules."

Some city councillors say the move has been coming for a while, but others have a problem with government intervening in the privacy of someone's home.

"The state has no business in the bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms or living rooms of the nation," Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Gord Hunter said yesterday.

Bay Coun. Alex Cullen said the signs point to non-smoking buildings eventually coming to Ottawa.

"This is inevitable," said Cullen. "Second-hand smoking affects people's health and air quality in buildings is an issue."

Ron Penner, vice-president for Globe General Agencies, who manages buildings in Winnipeg, Montreal, Edmonton and Saskatoon, said their buildings went smoke-free in February 2007.

Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman said yesterday he welcomes debate but prefers any ban to be market-driven.

Not much support for a ban on smoking in apartment buildings or multi unit dwelings.

An Ontario anti-smoking group says a poll it commissioned finds strong support for banning smoking in apartments.

The Ontario Tobacco-Free Network says in two Ipsos-Reid surveys last year, 70 per cent of apartment dwellers said smoke from their neighbours bothered them.

The polls also show 64 per cent of multi-unit dwellers would likely choose a smoke-free building over one where smoking is permitted.

However it appears a majority of callers to Bayshore Broadcasting totally opposed to any ban on smoking in apartments.

The time has come to debate whether smoking should be banned in some apartment buildings, Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman said amid growing pressure to curb the deadly effects of second-hand smoke in high-rises.

While Smitherman would rather see market forces drive landlords to declare their buildings smoke-free, he said it would be worth having a discussion about whether legislation would be necessary to back up any ban.